They actually used to do that, you know. Before airplanes had the capacity to lift anything much more than the pilot, pilots would care bricks, hoping to get above the other guy and drop it on his head. Then they carried pistols. I don’t think history actually records the pilots who were unlucky enough to get shot by a pistol in midair.
Nearly the ultimate in the shlemiel/shlmozzle duality. The *shlemiel *was the guy who carries a pistol for air combat, the *shlmozzle *was the guy actually got shot.
I’m not finding the names of either, but at least one shlemiel shot down a shemozzle with a handgun, over Rheims, in 1914. But it being 1914, I doubt either was a Republican from the USA.
It is an ancient duality, as identified by Yiddish tradition. Like yin and yan in the Eastern tradition, they are the human equivalent of two halves of a unity, the active and the passive, the one who spills the hot soup (schlemiel), and the one he spills it upon (schlemazel).
Their meeting is fated, unavoidable, like the heat death of the Universe and the baby urping on your last clean shirt. Traditionally, they meet, the disaster befalls, and they name each other according to their respective fate. “Schlemiel!” accuses one, “Schlemazel” affirms the other.
At least the victims are volunteers and part of the role-playing exercise: when I first read it, I thought it was an actual challenge to find people who really were undocumented or illegal. Jesus, what a mess that would be!
If it’s just a big game of Logan’s Run, I’m less concerned. Tacky and tawdry and tasteless, but, hell, that’s Texas at the best of times.
OK, I do not, in general, like Fox or Hasselbeck, but I think that, if the story reported the exchange accurately, then its interpretation is way off. Biased, even.
Hasselbeck was talking about pregnant women losing their doctors, and Varney was responding that most of the people losing doctors were elderly. Two different sets, not intersecting.
I realize that these people are usually poster children for idiocy, but in this case I think the idiot is the person who wrote the story.
Assuming the story has the stuff the right way around (I can’t watch the video at work) Varney was talking about people on UHC’s Medicare Advantage plans, and Hasselbeck jumping in with “and some of them are expecting babies.”
